The BBC Special Report page entitled “The Cost of Food” features a collection of resources on the current global food crisis. The page includes the latest news, analysis, video reports, and image galleries on food security issues.

Also contained within the Special Report page are links to a food prices Facts and Figures page, providing a breakdown of the food cost issue with charts, maps, and other graphics, and a Q&A overview of the rise in global food prices and what it means for the overall crisis.

According to a new report by the Fairtrade Foundation, farmers in the developing world have come under intense strain amid skyrocketing prices for food, fuel and fertiliser.  The report, which includes interviews with farmers’ groups in Uganda, Malawi, Nicaragua, India, Sri Lanka and the Caribbean, claims that houshold budgets for many farmers in these areas have been adjusted to allot 80% of their entire domestic income toward the purchasing of food.

What’s more, the report states that the devastating effects of the rise in the price of food staples on their families and livelihoods has not been off-set by the rises in the price of export commodities such as vanilla, coffee, tea or sugar.

This BBC News article discusses the report’s findings and examines arguments made both for and against applying  fair trade measures on the global market to alleviate food prices.

Having read the article, what effect do you think fair trade measures might have on farmers in the developing world? Share your reactions and questions in the comments section of this blog post.

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Do you have a question about food security you would like to hear addressed at the Town Hall? Click on the “Town Hall Questions” link to the right to submit a question and learn about this special event. Posted questions may be presented to the panelists at the Town Hall on April 4th.

The Great Decisions 2009 article on the “Global Food Crisis” identifies U.S. agricultural subsidies as an example of a divisive issue between developed countries and developing countries, particularly as they try to negotiate a fair, free trade system.

The U.S. government provides subsidies, or payments, to farmers or agribusinesses (often large-scale, corporate farms) for their crops, especially if the market price of their crop is low.  Subsidies allow U.S. growers to continue growing their crops and therefore keep the overall supply of the crop high, in turn keeping the market price down.  U.S. laws also require that food aid come from subsidized U.S. crops, which leads to accusations of “dumping.”  Farmers in developing countries argue that they cannot compete with U.S. growers who receive subsidies, potentially making them more reliant on international food aid.

In his speech before Congress last night, President Barack Obama stated,  that in the next budget he would seek to “…end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don’t need them,” which would reflect a major change in U.S. policy.  An article from Reuters looks at President Obama’s remarks, their implications and reactions from groups on all sides of the subsidies debate.

As the international community attempts to help Afghanistan rebuild, the Taliban insurgency and illegal opium growing remain among the largest detriments to peace and security.  A no less deadly factor that also continues to threaten the well-being of Afghans is hunger.  According to a recent article on Eurasianet, Afghans die from hunger and poverty each year (40,000) at a rate 25 times higher than those who die from conflict.  The article also discusses the effects that the global food crisis has had on Afghanistan and the challenges of ensuring food security there.

To address the problem of Afghanistan’s food security, the UN requested $600 million under the Humanitarian Action Plan for Afghanistan, announced in early February 2009.  UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes announced that $354 million, the largest disbursement of money under the plan, would be used to provide food for nearly one third of the population.

The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released its Crop Prospects and Food Situation report on February 12th with some sobering findings.  The report cites the presence of acute food shortages in 32 countries around the world and predicts a potentially disastrous fall in global cereal production.

This UN News Centre press release highlights the report’s concerns  and outlines how various causal factors are leading to food security issues in individual countries and whole regions of the world, including Eastern and Southern Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

What are your reactions to the FAO’s Crop Prospects and Food Situation report?  Share your ideas and questions below.

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Do you have a question about food security you would like to hear addressed at the Town Hall?  Click on the “Town Hall Questions” link to the right to submit a question and learn about this special event.  Posted questions may be presented to the panelists at the Town Hall on April 4th.

On February 19th, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) program PM aired a segment on a new United Nations report examining the global food crisis. 

In the piece, ABC interviewed food policy experts about the causal factors of the recent food crisis, including population growth, urbanization, climate change, and the development of biofuels.  The experts are also asked to assess the grim projections made within the report, released by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and its suggestions for solving the crisis.

ABC posted this full transcript of the segement.

A PDF of the full UNEP report, entitled The Environmental Food Crisis: Environment’s Role in Averting Future Food Crises, can be found here.

What do you think about what the experts had to say in the ABC segement?  Share your thoughts and questions below.

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Do you have a question about food security you would like to hear addressed at the Town Hall?  Click on the “Town Hall Questions” link to the right to submit a question and learn about this special event.  Posted questions may be presented to the panelists at the Town Hall on April 4th.

As food prices and the demand for alternative fuels increases, so do looming concerns about the effects climate change will have on the global food supply.  Food policy experts contributing to this Time online article warn that the continued emission of greenhouse gases, prominent contributors to global warming, could mean that many climates will be unable to sustain crop life by the end of the century.  They also argue that shifting weather patterns threaten to make previously viable lands unusable for the production of foodstuffs.

Read the food experts’ approaches for confronting climate change with regards to the global food supply, and share your reaction to their suggestions.

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Do you have a question about food security you would like to hear addressed at the Town Hall?  Click on the “Town Hall Questions” link to the right to submit a question and learn about this special event.  Posted questions may be presented to the panelists at the Town Hall on April 4th.

UPDATE 4/10/09: The Peanut Corporation plant in Texas fined for conditions that contributed to the salmonella outbreak in the company’s peanuts.

On the heels of the Peanut Corporation of America’s president Stewart Parnell’s refusal to testify before Congress, the company filed for bankruptcy.  The Washington Post takes a look at the “rise and fall” of the troubled company.  Forward Foods LLC also filed for bankruptcy as a result of revenues lost after it recalled its Detour energy bar, which contained peanuts supplied by Peanut Corporation.  The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Slim Fast is recalling three of its bars for the same reason.

A recent AP story relates how the peanut contamination scare has hurt the entire peanut industry.

Find out more about the recall and which products are considered safe by visiting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Peanut Butter and other Peanut Containing Products Recall List website.

As discussed in the Great Decisions 2009 article “Global Food Crisis,” many food policy analysts have argued against the current, prevalent strategy favored by developing countries for providing food aid.  Called “dumping” by its critics, this strategy includes requirements to use the developed countries’ surplus crops as the source of food aid.  An alternative strategy would be to provide funds to developing countries and aid agencies to distribute existing local food stocks or to allow them to buy seeds and equipment to cultivate their own local food production capacity.

Last week, the World Food Programme initiated a new project to distribute food vouchers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for families to use in registered shops where they could receive locally grown food.  The project, the first of its kind in Africa, would employ a stategy counter to “dumping” and is intended to primarily help those who are hungry and undernourished.  Local farmers and businesses who grow and sell the food are also expected to benefit.

The recent salmonella outbreak caused by contamination in peanut plants in the United States has raised new fears about domestic food security.  To date, eight people have died in connection with the contamination and 600 hundred have become ill.  A recent video from the New York Times recaps the development of the outbreak and challenges facing government regulation of food in the United States.

On Wednesday, in a tense and dramatic hearing before the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Peanut Corporation of America president Stewart Parnell invoked his Fifth Amendment rights to avoid answering questions about contamination at Peanut Corporation plants.

Prior to Parnell’s appearance, victims and their families testified about the harm caused by the contamination.

The salmonella outbreak in peanuts, a food product widely consumed or added to food in the U.S., has already led to new oversight by the FDA.